Code: Green
by KaydenceRei
Summary: Code Greens weren't a planned thing. Nobody expected it the first time that The Hulk came raging out into the middle of the fight. Nobody expected how it would end. But the Hulk had never been anything less than the unexpected. (Pre-AoU. First Lullaby. Slight Bruce/Natasha.)


**Author's Note** : So. This is odd for me. I'm not really into any pairings or whatnot Marvel-wise. But, roll with what comes to you. I just needed my own version of a 'first lullaby' story.

 **Disclaimer** : It pains me. But alas, I own nothing. Seriously, I don't even think I bought the underwear I'm currently wearing.

 **Code Green** :

Ever since HYDRA had made itself known to the world, nothing had been easy. Regardless of failing in their ultimate goal to wipe out anyone on the planet who did(or later would) stand against them, they somehow managed to cause further issues. Splinter cells popping up everywhere. Distrust for anyone linked to SHIELD. Clint and Natasha made their presence scarce unless the Avengers assembled. Steve was much the same, always searching for and never finding his friend. Tony was still doing the job of fixing the shambles of his life after the incident with Extremis and Pepper. Bruce tended to keep his usual distance from anyone and anything except these days he did it in one of Tony's labs.

It was Thor who kept convincing the Avengers to assemble. He would show up, he would announce a possible location for where Loki's scepter had recently been and off they would go. As many of them gathering as they could to help a teammate. More often than not, somebody was missing. If Bruce went along, he always stayed on the quinjet, feeding them information over their comms. Most times it was one of the two assassins on the team that weren't there. Natasha would sometimes be in the middle of some farce to pick up the pieces of a life she didn't know how to deal with. Clint would never give his reasoning to any of the others, but the redhead always had an excuse for him if he didn't show.

This was one of their rarer assemblies, Natasha decided. Thor and Tony were flying ahead of the jet, Clint was at the wheel, Steve was stoically sitting in his seat while she read the information on Bruce's tablet over his shoulder. She pinched the bridge of her nose in frustration after about ten minutes of him prattling on about using satellites to measure geometric patterns(or something of that sort) to help lock down a more precise location on the scepter(she really didn't understand how that might work), just in case this didn't pan out. The last fifteen hadn't panned out and she didn't expect this time to be any different. Still, she didn't want to imagine what HYDRA might be planning with something as powerful as Loki's scepter in their grasp. "So what your saying-" she cut him off, "Is that it's probably not here either?" His look was sheepish at best, but she knew he had been thinking the same. The words had probably been in there somewhere during the long spiel he had droned out.

"What's the matter, Romanoff? Your English failing you?" came Tony's quip in her ear.

She blew out a heavy breath of air and saw Bruce looking amused in the most guilty of ways. Guilty because his amusement was at her benefit, not something that typically happened. The truth was, she was off her game since the end of SHIELD. She didn't normally interrupt Bruce, hell, she didn't typically interrupt anyone. Period. Even so, she didn't give Tony the satisfaction of an answer. Instead she took her own seat, seeing Bruce grimace in discomfort as she checked the clips of her guns and replaced them. He wasn't a fan of guns, she had gathered that rather quickly. Her decision to return the guns to her holsters had him noticeably relaxing and she gave him an apologetic smile.

"We've got incoming!" Clint's voice alerted them all.

Natasha and Steve were both on their feet in seconds but Steve had responded faster, taking the seat beside the archer to see what could be done.

"You guys got more than one!" came Tony over the comms again.

The warning wasn't quite in time. The explosion shuttered the back of the quinjet and she was knocked off her feet. The way the air escaped her lungs just seemed abnormal, at least until she noticed the chasm in the back hanger, sucking the air out as she slid towards it.

A chorus of 'Nat, Romanoff and Banner' sounded from the front. Clint and Steve. Her fingers clawed for anything to grab hold of but there was _nothing_. The more that the gaping hole grew the faster she slipped across the floor and towards it and she realized Bruce was faring no better than she was, just behind her in their slide. Finally she got hold of a metal bar along the side-wall, snatching Bruce's hand before he could slide past her. "Land this thing, Clint!" she growled out. She watched Bruce's grateful look as she pulled him further to her, getting her free arm across his chest and under his armpit like a hook. It was very quickly becoming one of the more uncomfortable moments she had ever had until Bruce finally got a hold of something else. Even so, she kept one hand with a death grip on the metal bar and the other with a firm grip on his arm, just in case.

"Thank you," was whispered from Bruce and almost unintelligible with all the other noise coming from behind them.

Still, she caught it, gave him a near imperceptible nod in response. It was an uncomfortable few minutes of Tony and Thor trying to intercept anything else before Clint finally grounded them. She shuddered out a breath of relief. To be honest with herself, she thought Bruce might actually go green right in the back of the jet. The idea of becoming a Hulk pancake for a second time was a lot more than disconcerting.

"Anyone else think they were expecting us?" More sarcastic wit from Tony over the comms. "The party is already coming this way. And cheers, they've brought a tank!" Nobody commented. "Scratch that. Three tanks. It's clearly not a party unless there are three tanks."

"I think it best we begin Plan B!" Thor's voice boomed over the comms next.

Bruce looked more than a little confused. "We have a Plan B?"

"A valiant showmanship of war and might!" came Thor's response. "Striking fear into our enemies as their screams ring out from the Gates of Hel!"

Natasha heard the crackle of lightning and a few screams coursed through the air from a distance. "Naturally..." she commented dryly, accepting Bruce's gesture as he held out his hand to help her to her feet. She could see Bruce's amused concern at the explanation of 'Plan B'. "Beat everyone up and hope we find the scepter," she expanded on it for him.

"Oh. Excellent."

She gave him a wry smile before realizing his hand was still attached to hers and Clint and Steve had already taken off to join the fray with Tony and Thor. Slowly and uncomfortably she trailed her fingers from his, noting that he looked equally perturbed with the situation. Still, it didn't seem right to leave him inside a broken down quinjet. She moved towards the controls, fiddling with some of the switches before the frown graced her face.

"Something wrong?" the concern was evident in his voice.

"Stealth mode must have been damaged," she replied, smacking the console with a pathetic thud. She pushed in on her comm.

Steve's commanding tone came over the comms in response, "Stay with him then."

Natasha could see that Bruce seemed a little frustrated that she had been ordered to pretty much babysit him. Still, the halfhearted smile she gave him seemed to assuage the feeling and he went back to his tablet, prattling on over the comms to the rest of the team. She glanced over, seeing that he was using the aforementioned satellites to feed the others information on the enemies movements. "That's handy," she mentioned, pulling both handguns out and walking to the breach in the rear. She angled her head to see the people running towards them. "Doc, try not to freak out. Think of something calm."

"Why would I-" he winced at the sounds of her firing the guns out the gaping hole. "I always liked sunsets. The sun gets lower and it turns orange. It's calming."

She couldn't really deny that as she fired off a few more rounds. "It is pretty serene," she agreed. It was the only honest thing she could think to respond with.

"This isn't going to end well..." he mumbled. "Agent Romanoff-"

"Not an Agent anymore." She grimaced. It sounded rude, even though she hadn't really meant for it to come out that way. "The sun getting low, Bruce. Just focus on that."

He let it slide. "Not the biggest issue right now. We've got a fourth tank."

"Where?" She was still firing out the breach.

He sucked in a breath.

"Bruce?" But suddenly he didn't need to answer. Her own breath hitched as an explosion rocketed the side of the quinjet. It sent them rocking back and forth and she was sprawled on the metal floor once more at the impact. "Stark!"

"On my way! Keep it busy!"

"Keep it-" she grunted, dragging herself back to her feet and watching Bruce do the same with shaky breaths. "With _what_ pray tell, do you suggest I keep it busy with!?" came her most sardonic retort ever.

She could almost _hear_ the roll of his eyes. "You're crafty, Romanoff. I'm sure you can think of something for five minutes."

To her relief, she wasn't the only one annoyed. Even Bruce looked irked by the suggestion of keeping the tank busy. "Right. Of course," she grumbled, throwing up different containers to peer inside. Her lips quirked sideways a little as she tilted her head, debating if anything in them would be even remotely useful. "Keep it busy..." she mumbled mockingly. "You're crafty..."

Bruce was watching her, she could see it out of the corner of her eye. He had an eyebrow quirked and beyond the worrisome look he was courting, she could see mild amusement etching in his eyes.

"I can _hear_ you, Romanoff."

"Shove it up your ass, Stark." She saw Bruce guffaw at her words, heard Clint snickering over the comms. Another explosion had the quinjet rocking again and then it creaked eerily. She was tumbling and then she felt pain _everywhere_.

"Natasha!"

That sounded like Bruce. A very tormented and distressed Bruce. _That's not good..._ She sucked in a sharp breath and exhaled something that sounded like a wheeze. By the time she opened her eyes she found horrified brown ones staring down at her. Or were they staring up? She narrowed her eyes, trying to focus on the fact the the seats were hanging above them. Hunks of metal dropping around them.

"Natasha—hold on," Bruce's voice was getting alarmed, anxious. "I need to get that off you."

 _Get what off_? Her eyes strained as she looked around. Smoke. A few small flames. Then she saw where she had been standing. A rather large hole now there and the metal of the quinjet was on top of her. It took effort. Bruce struggling to pull it off and clearly fighting off the other guy and she was trying to push it off from underneath.

"Get out! Get out _now_!" It sounded like Steve, but it was hard to tell with the way her ears were ringing.

The look on Bruce's face said it all. She was stuck. She could accept that. Things like that were bound to happen sooner or later. Admittedly, she would have preferred later. "S'okay," she assured him. And he looked horrified at that. Like she had just blasphemed or something. "Go, Banner."

"No."

Natasha let out a pained moan as he tried pulling it off again, his skin was gaining a distinct green tinge at the sound. "There's no time, Bruce," she huffed out. "The sun, Bruce. Just think about the sun-" He wasn't giving up, in fact, he was backing up, moaning and groaning and _growing_.

"Get out!"

"Nat! Banner!"

She couldn't really place the voices to names. She just watched him go, shaking beneath the sheet of metal that pinned her to the floor. The roaring explosion was deafening. Whatever happened after that was blank. Empty. Darkness.

Until the growling and howling as the ground under her trembled. The growling and howling wasn't just furious. It was a mixture of rage and woe and _misery_.

"Hulk, you gotta let us over there, big guy." It was Steve's voice, trying to reason with the raging beast.

"He's right, c'mon, buddy." That sounded like Tony. A very worried Tony. It was a tone of voice that didn't sit well with any of them.

She felt dizzy. After a few more moments of listening to pleading the others were doing with The Hulk and she managed to open her eyes into a squint. A moment later she fully opened them and to be honest, other than a little dazed and rattled, she didn't think she was hurt. Or maybe she was just that bad off. Sometimes it was hard to tell the difference. But realized it wasn't the ground she felt trembling beneath her. It was The Hulk, cradling her like a wounded child. They were in some giant crater, burning fragments of the quinjet all around and the Hulk was trampling in a raging circle in the center of it. She must have made a noise, because he snarled, stopped all movement and angled his head to look down at her with wide eyes.

The silence beyond the ringing in her ears was deafening. Everyone was silent, even the usually bellowing of The Hulk was nonexistent. She was only held in one arm now, the large green index finger touched her face and it was surprisingly gentle, leaving a lingering feeling much like a cobweb when he pulled it away. She saw the crimson stain and drip off the oversize digit. That probably didn't mean anything good and there was a look of concern behind the angry green face.

Still. It was hard to think straight; hard to form a coherent thought about whatever had just transpired to put her in her current position. She just remembered a tank. And explosions. And _Bruce_. Bruce who had been trying to get her out of the quinjet. _The quinjet exploded..._

By the time that actually sunk in a few moments later, she realized she was reaching her hand out to the side of The Hulk's face. He flinched away from the motion at first and she only hesitated a moment before attempting it once more. His expression said he was a little miffed with it, but he wasn't stopping her. Finally she rested her fingertips on his cheek, slowly and carefully allowing the palm of her hand to follow. A snarl of air came from his nose but he didn't seem any more pissed about it than before. "You—you saved me..." her voice sounded foreign to her own ears. Soft, grateful, hesitant.

It was slow and gentle as he eased her down to the ground until she was sitting. That was when she really got a good look at herself. Her entire uniform was riddled with cuts in the fabric, with hints of red throughout it. The Hulk seemed to be looking her over as well before he gave a dissatisfied grunt. "It's okay..." she tried to reassure him. "Better than being dead...right?" she meant for it to be a joke, but it didn't really come out right. The attempt at levity was lost on him and he huffed. The that same blood stained finger prodded her hand and he pointed up. She followed it with her eyes, smiling forlornly at the orange hue of the sun setting. "Yeah, Big Guy—sun's getting real low." He looked almost calm for a moment. Then he turned back nudging her hand again.

It was hard to decipher what it was he actually wanted now, since he was actively refusing to actually speak to her. More prodding. She tried to think back, since he was reference things that she and Bruce had been doing and speaking of just before all of this. Things were just so damned muddled. She remembered his comment about the sunset. About finding it calming. But what was the deal with her hand?

It took a second to flash through her head. When Bruce had helped her up. When their hands had lingered because Thor had said something ridiculous about screaming enemies and the Gates of Hel that had thoroughly distracted them. Was that what he wanted? To hold her hand? She wasn't entirely sure that was possible. Nevertheless, she raised her hand in the air, holding it up to him. It had been him who egged the motion on, but he snarled, hesitating as he stared at her palm. She was beginning to think it wasn't what he wanted and she frowned, retracting her hand and wondering what else she could do. Then he was prodding her hand again.

This was slowly becoming more and more frustrating. Then he nudged her hand again before motioning to his other hand. She tilted her head slightly at that, looking between her hand and his before she finally figured out what was bothering him. "I think I get it now..." she whispered. She peeled the glove from her hand, dropping it to the ground and saw him watch with interest. Slowly, hesitating once more, she raised her hand back into the air. "That better?" she questioned. He huffed and his shoulders sagged and he squatted in front of her, finally raising his own hand towards her. But he didn't actually touch her.

She waited, but it didn't happen until finally she let her fingertips touch his hand. He flinched at the feeling of her touch and pulled his hand away, another snarl releasing from his confused face. "Nothing to worry about big guy," she told him. "Think of the sunset. Remember? It gets real low. It turns orange?" She nodded upward and watched his eyes follow and settle on the orange sun above. His eyes went from the sun to her a few times before settling on her hair.

"Sun..." it came out in a growl as his index finger touched the strands of her hair.

Her lips slanted into an amused smile. "I guess it does sort of have that color, doesn't it?" and she released a breathy chuckle when he huffed and nodded. His hand was palm up in front of her now and her eyes softened slight as she placed her hand in his palm, delicately tracing her fingertips across it until they reached his. It was the strangest thing. The strangest sensation. And then he jerked away, surprising her as he moaned and groaned. His hands grasped his head and she watched as he _shrunk_. Not only was he shrinking, but he was slowly looking like Bruce again. A very green Bruce. It took a few moments but his own skin color came back as well. He was writhing and sweating in the dirt and she sucked in a breath.

"Holy shit..."

Clint's surprised voice was the last thing she really remembered before everything spun and went dark again.

* * *

 _Beep. Beep. Beep._

Everything ached like never before.

 _Beep. Beep. Beep._

That damned noise was the most infernal thing.

 _Beep. Beep—SMASH!_

"Whoa!"

Natasha's eyes shot open and she stared at Clint who had jumped back from her careening fist. She glanced over and stared at the machine she had just knocked over, wincing slightly as she yanked her hand back and curling it to her chest.

"You're alright, Nat."

She wasn't so sure, but she didn't say anything to contradict his statement.

Clint's eyes were narrowed, studying her, taking the hand she clutched to her chest into his and giving it a gentle squeeze. "Pretty amazing thing you did, by the way." Her confused look must have given her away. "Calming down the Hulk. You uh, shrunk him back into Banner."

"I thought that was a weird dream," she admitted. When she thought about it, it was sort of ridiculous. "Suppose that's dumb..." she commented dryly. "I don't dream." She knew Clint understood; understood that her nights were filled only with horror.

"Me neither."

Natasha paused, eyes flickering to Bruce in the doorway.

"Sorry," came the sheepish voice. "I'll uh—come back."

"Doctor Banner, wait." She watched as he appeared back in the doorway with uncertainty, so she glanced over at Clint, giving his hand a squeeze and an apologetic look.

He understood. "I'll leave you to it."

And he left without another word. She always appreciated that about him. With Bruce lingering in the doorway and not actually entering, things were beginning to get absurdly awkward. She supposed it was up to her to start. "You could actually come inside the room." It was strangely endearing the way he floundered with what to say before giving in and settling himself on a chair near the bed. Not much, but she supposed it was better than nothing at all. "I owe you my life."

Now he just looked embarrassed. He also looked like he didn't entirely agree. "I think it makes us even."

"How so?" The confusion in her tone was apparent even to her. It was almost disconcerting the way he was staring at her, like he didn't understand why she couldn't comprehend his statement. "Far as I know, I've never done that for you. Unless I was a lot more out of it than I remember."

He released a shaky chuckle in response to that, fidgeting in his seat. "You calmed down the... Other Guy."

Natasha's head tilted to the side slightly, trying to understand the meaning behind that and how it really compared. "He's not so bad..." she decided. He really wasn't. Sure, he had swatted her like a fly and drove the fear of God into her once upon a time. It wasn't often she was left quivering in a corner, but The Hulk had managed to turn her into a quaking child again for several minutes. The look on Bruce's face said he remembered it equally as well. "You—he..." she paused, crinkling her nose as she debated the wording before shrugging. "Both of you," _that worked_ , "saved my life. I should be dead."

He reached for her hand, thought better of it and then pulled it back. "Nobody calms down the Other Guy... how did you do it?"

"You don't remember?" she questioned, watching his hand fidget as he shook his head.

"Just—little pieces. Fragments."

Not what she expected. Though, she supposed they never really talked much before for her to ever ask. Now she wondered how many people ever did. Or how many people ever actually stopped to see the man behind the beast, or the beast behind the man. "He likes sunsets too," she informed him. Saw his expression change to curiosity. "First thing he did after I woke up—you know, after deciding I wasn't a threat—was point up at the sunset." She gave him a brief smile, saw him try to dig around for that moment.

"But how-"

She quirked an eyebrow up. "I think it's because we were talking about it," she explained. "You said it on the quinjet."

"Oh..." He remembered that. _'Yeah, Big Guy—sun's getting real low.'_ "You did technically save me first," he reminded her. She didn't recall it. "When we were still in the air?"

Both her eyebrows quirked upward at that. "I think we both know that you would have been fine."

He seemed to think better of disagreeing. "But you did it anyways. You didn't think about it. You just—you just did. You could have gotten yourself killed."

"I didn't."

"But you _could_ have!"

Natasha blinked a few times, recognizing that he was clearly upset about it.

"And the Other Guy... he—he could have killed you."

Her eyes softened at that. "I don't think you give him or yourself enough credit, Doctor Ban—Bruce." She watched the turmoil on his face as he debated her words. "When I woke up, there wasn't one moment where I thought he might hurt me," she informed him, sitting up. She reached out, taking his fidgeting hand in hers. He flinched at it, much like The Hulk had done and she sighed, pulling her hand back. Before she really got her hand anywhere he reached out and took it again. Apparently, they were both a little hesitant around each other. "Nobody looks past The Hulk," she told him solemnly. "They don't see the man behind the monster."

"You did."

She smiled briefly at that. "He gave me a pretty good reason to," she reminded him. "He was gentle. Sort of—sweet." She paused now, her feelings getting slightly conflicted. "Besides Clint or Steve, that's honestly the..." she sighed, running the fingers of her free hand through her hair. "Well. Actually, even they don't act quite like that with me."

"Like what?"

He seemed honestly interested and she shrugged. "Like I'm—I don't know, fragile. He treated me like he might break me." She sucked in a breath, watching their hands as her fingertips moved across his palm. "Everything that happened, to change him back into you? He initiated all of that. The sunset? Touching my hand? He got all that from _you_ , Bruce. From me. Our interaction just before... all of that." She retracted her hand to her side, realizing the strangeness of her actions. "He looked past what everyone else sees when they look at me."

Bruce frowned at that. "What does everyone else see, Natasha?"

"Nothing." She saw the perturbed look. "Because I don't let them." She shrugged now, laying back in the bed. She really was exhausted. He still seemed confused and she gave him a sad smile before turning her back to him, "It was just nice to be seen." He must have assumed she was finished talking, because she heard the chair creak as he stood and his footsteps headed for the door. "I could do it again."

"What?"

She leaned up and turned back over to him. "Change him back into you."

He seemed a little harried at the idea. "What makes you think that would work again?"

"It's a connection," she informed him. "You feel it. So does he." She could tell it irked him that she was right. "I feel it, too," she added, which seemed to assuage some of his annoyance. "The sunset? The—hand thing. It soothes him. Y'know... like a lullaby?" her voice was weary. She really was tired.

Bruce gave a half-baked smile at that. "A lullaby? Natasha, there aren't always going to be sunsets."

But her eyes were closed, her breathing was almost evened out and she just tapped her head in response.

Turned out, she was right. The Hulk didn't actually require a sunset for the words to be effective. He just associated her statement of the sun being low with everything being alright again. It really was nice to be seen sometimes.

* * *

 **Well. That's not something I thought I would write. I'm not actually a huge fan of Bruce and Natasha. But I suppose maybe that's because they just jumped the gun with it in the movie. Eh, semantics. Hope you enjoyed it nonetheless.**


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